The Panera Bread honor system: What would you pay if food had no price?

AP PhotoWell, now we know the source of the creeping red menace currently terrorizing our fair land. Is it Obamacare? Nay. Another stimulus package? Wrong again.

It's Panera Bread, the seemingly innocuous restaurant chain that now threatens to subvert our entire free market system by -- are you ready for this? -- giving away its bread!

OK, removing tinfoil helmet now. The tactic currently being tested at a Panera Bread in Missouri doesn't involve tax money, so probably shouldn't be called socialism. But it does toe the whole "from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs" line.

The pilot restaurant is run by a nonprofit foundation. If it can sustain itself financially, Panera will expand the model around the country within months. It all depends on whether customers will abide by the motto that hangs above the deli counter: "Take what you need, leave your fair share."

Panera hopes to open a similar location in every community where it operates. Other nonprofits have opened community kitchens, where customers set the price, and the idea has spread among food enthusiasts and philanthropists. But Panera brings new scale to the idea -- its community restaurants will use the company's distribution system and have access to its national food suppliers.

In a story examining results of similar experiments at other restaurants, the New York Times quotes Panera Bread chairman Ron Shaich: ""It's a test of human nature. The real question is whether the community can sustain it."

The pay-what-you-want model won't work for two main reasons: We don't have a realistic concept of what our food should cost in America, and restaurants are too focused on the individual dining experience. Americans want a have-it-your-way kind of dining experience, not a help-pay-someone-else's-way. Besides, the prevalence of dollar and value menus means that we've come to expect our chain food to be cheap.

I'd like to be wrong, but I don't see an American economy ready to embrace Panera's take-a-sandwich, leave-a-sandwich model.

Maybe I'm a Debbie Downer, but I just don't see enough people consistently paying the equivalent of or more than the suggested prices -- which is what these places would need to compensate for the number of customers who don't pay.

Personally, I would feel pressure to pay MORE than the suggested prices -- which is fine with me: If I can afford the luxury of eating out, I don't mind helping others get a meal they really need. However, I wouldn't have any idea how much more I should pay; in fact, not having a set price would stress me out and make me really conflicted and self-conscious. Honestly, I'd probably just avoid this place altogether.

The Wall Street Journal says the success of a pay-what-you-want business model will depend on the industry. Restaurants, maybe. Doctors, not so much.

The paper connects the Panera experiment to one attempted earlier this year by a handful of physicians who, for one day, accepted no insurance and told patients to pay what they thought their care was worth, or whatever they could afford.

Participating doctors enjoyed providing services to the underinsured, but reported that the payments received were not enough to cover the cost of care.

The lesson, according to the WSJ: "The goal is to roll out more of the so-called Panera Cares Cafes if this one succeeds. A chain of pay-what-you-will clinics is far less likely."

So, since pay-what-you-want restaurants are the more likely option, what do you think? What would you be willing to pay if a Panera Bread in Michigan employed the honor system?